9 1/2 Narrow (27 page)

When Lee and I left the house, the white squirrels were scampering in the backyard. “I'd like to have the bird feeder,” Lee said. “We could put it right in front of our kitchen window and look at the birds just as your mother did.”

“So we'll become bird-watchers in our old age?”

He laughed. “At least we'll have something in common.”

I didn't look at the baby album for several weeks. I felt it would make me too sad. When I finally opened it, I had to smile. Glued to the first page was a birth announcement that read
JUST ARRIVED TO
FILL THESE SHOES. . . .
There was a picture of a pair of blue baby shoes with pink laces on the front. On the opposite page, my mother had written down my birth date, the hour of my birth, my weight, and the names of the delivery nurses, including Joan, who was then Miss Hardy, and another nurse, Miss Winters.

My mother noted that I'd made my first attempt at crawling upstairs at ten months. At a year, I took four steps and “walked soon after.” Lacking my father's focus, my mother worked on the book intermittently, and
Patricia's Baby Album
contained mostly blank pages. She'd always wanted me to write a children's story, so perhaps she'd left it up to me to finish it.

A few days later, flipping through the book again, my eye stopped at the name of the second delivery nurse. I had a hunch and called my father.

“Remember the nurse who helped deliver me?” I asked.

“Sure, Joan.”

“No, the other one. Miss Winters.”

“Oh, that's Barbara. She's the one across the hall. I'm waving to her now.”

What were the odds that the two women who were present at my birth would be close to my father as he neared the end of his life? It almost made me believe in angels.

When I looked at the baby album again, I noticed something else. My mother had been inconsistent about keeping up with my various childhood milestones, but in her random jottings, she'd seen the future:

“Patricia loves books.”

“She loves asking questions.”

“She loves wearing my shoes.”

Epilogue

T
he other day, I bumped into my friend Nancy, who lives in my building and is a 9½ narrow too. Over the years, we've discussed our favorite topics: shoes and mothers. Now that we've grown older and traded high heels for lower ones, we've also come to view our mothers from a different perspective. We've gone from complaining about them, to accepting their foibles, to outright admiration for their grit and determination. We always loved them; it took time and maturity to walk in their shoes.

Nancy told me that her mother, who is eighty-nine and lives in Florida, recently suffered a series of unexplained falls. Up until then, she'd enjoyed an active life but is now housebound. “I just got off the phone with my sister,” she said. “She was driving to the Goodwill to donate my mother's shoes! I told her to turn the car around. ‘Take away her shoes,' I said, ‘and you take away her hope.'”

I suddenly thought of an Emily Dickinson poem that I'd memorized in grade school. It's about the endurance of a bird's song through dark times. I've always loved the quirky opening line: “Hope is the thing with feathers.” Hope, I've discovered, is also the thing with bows and rhinestones and studs, with kitten heels and platforms, red soles and beige. Hope is the reason I'm back at Bergdorf Goodman in search of a pair of knee-high boots to replace the ones I wore to my mother's funeral.

Today, the shoe department isn't offering champagne but it's still packed with shoppers. Women in all shapes and sizes are walking up and down in every conceivable type of shoe. I stand at the entrance and watch the colorful parade, almost expecting confetti to rain down from the ceiling. As the women gaze at their reflections in the full-length mirrors, they rotate their feet to make sure a particular style flatters their legs. If they're wearing pants, they roll them up. If they're wearing dresses or skirts, they sometimes twirl around to view the shoes in motion. Sometimes they just stare, as if creating stories in their heads. No matter their ages, they're like children playing dress-up. These women are not buying shoes to please men. They're buying shoes to please themselves.

As I try on a variety of boots, in black and gray, suede and calfskin, I see the gumball machine and the fluoroscope, the marabou mules and Beatle boots. I think of my mother, and I'd love to go back in time if only for an hour or two. I find myself getting teary, so I thank the salesman and take the bus home. A few hours later, I go online and find the perfect boots in snakeskin and suede. They have a two-inch block heel, a rounded toe, and a narrow profile. With their multiple textures, they remind me of the 1970s, which really wasn't my fashion decade, but maybe it will be now. Picturing myself in the boots, I hear my mother say, “
Snakeskin? Are you crazy?
” And then I hear the flutter of wings, and I know that hope, in 9½ narrow, is on its way.

I
'd like to thank my father for everything, my sister Nancy for her high spirits and knotted hair, and my niece Isabel for being such a joy. A special thank-you to Clarice Kestenbaum, whose shoes no one could possibly fill.

I am lucky to have kept the same incredible friends for decades. My deepest gratitude goes to Woody for being the best pal a girl could ever have, and to Warren, who's so vain he probably thinks this book is about him. I adore you both (in equal measure). I'd also like to thank Ira Fogel and Pamela Fogel for entrusting me with Steffi's story. I miss her every day. Thanks to Ira Resnick, Jamie and Jenny Delson, Glynnis O'Connor, James Danziger, Jack Henry, Suzanne Eagle, Richard Story, Jennifer Crandall,and Robin Sherman. A special thanks goes to Elaine Altholz, who put this book in motion, Nancy Cromer Grayson, who provided the ending, and to Marie Colantoni Pechet for her inspiring blog.

A big thank-you to my incredibly supportive editor, Lauren Marino, and to her energetic team at Gotham. I am indeed fortunate to have the wonderful Emma Sweeney as my agent.

To my mother-in-law, Dorothy Stern, all I can say is please keep your amazing pea soup coming. As for my husband, Lee, thanks for finally admitting that the mysterious steamer trunk in our storage bin contains some of the Puma sneakers I thought you'd given away. And no, I don't believe you held on to the red patent-leather ones to commemorate our first date. Still, I love you. Thanks for walking beside me.

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